Wednesday, July 31, 2013

New additions to NARS 413 BLKR line, named for the brand's flagshio NYC locale are coming August 1st.

I love wandering Bleecker St. , just about most anyone who heads to NY does. But I also remember the days I hung out in the Village in the late '80s. In those days Bleecker was the Do Not Cross line. My very savvy friend when we first went said we can go to the corner of Bleecker, but we don't do down it . So it always gives me just a twinkle of amusement at how high end and hot the street is these days. And while I've had people say they wish they could have seen the ungentrified Village ( and it was that cool) Bleecker St. is much better the way it is now.

The lipstick is semi- matte, and very much the color of fall . It's full deep pigment. The nail polish is a pretty blue, one that looked much different out of the bottle . In the bottle is looks very dark navy , on the nail it's a bit brighter and lighter. The swatch may not be the best but I think you get the idea.

You may have noticed Herbal Essences now has shower gels. Seeing as how so many love the scent of their shampoos, enough so that a commercial got made that could possibly be called iconic , the idea of matching shower gels is one of those "why didn't they think of this sooner" ideas.

Now you can pair body wash and your favorite Herbal Essences shampoo/conditioner for a triple fragrance experience.

There are three new gels/body washes in all . What one did I pick? The citrus-y Body Burst of course.

The citrus here is a nice , light fragrance, less than many I've tried but just enough to get a whiff of orange and a tiny bit of sweet floral. If you like your scented body products a little on the lighter side, this is a good choice. It's a fun, zippy scent as most citruses are .

The body wash itself lathers up well and is lightly moisturizing. Not heavy but non drying .

Herbal Essence Body Wash is available now at $ 2.99 for an 11.1 oz bottle, $ 3.99 for a 15.8 oz bottle and $ 4.99 for 22.1 oz.

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Pixi Fall at Target brings a new large palette and some smaller eye ones as well as a new Endless Silky Eye Pen set. I love those and use the olive shade from a previous set often. Look for these at stores soon.

Monday, July 29, 2013

With the new Antonio Lopez collection from MAC are many beautiful lip , eye and cheek sets, but you know what I love best ? The model image with Jerry Hall, Marissa Berenson and Pat Cleveland. How amazing are these ladies ?

Kudos to MAC for using women over 50 and 60 showing they can be vital, relevant and smoking in those slinky gowns.

Here's a couple of the color palettes available September 12 through October 10 .

With Hourglass Cosmetics new Lip Stylos you can pick your nude. This new release is Hourglass entry into the lip crayon world and comes in 6 new nude shades .

Although lately I've been all about orange-y peach and coral , I adore a nude lip and am rather proud of my large collection of amazing ones. We all go from a look we love and use a lot to finding new ones we stick with more and for a long time a nude lip was my mainstay. It's still a lip look I go to often and Femme Nude Lip Stylo is taking me back to it.

As usual Hourglass amps up the packaging, with Femme Nude taking the lip crayon to the luxe next level. It's pretty to look at as well as wear.

The finish of Lip Stylo is satin, and it's very creamy with plenty of moisture and medium to full coverage. A perfect lippie for a lighter makeup day or as a complement to a deeper or smoky eye look. I particularly love this type of shade when I'm rocking a green eye. It just really works for me.

No.5 is the nude with a hint of blush tone that warms it up . It is called golden peach by Hourglass. It also has a very tiny bit of shimmer. I think it may be the only color to have that, and leave it to me to go right to the shimmery. What it does is just make it more luminous , less flat.

As I said these have nice moisture with vitamin e in there and the moisture lasts. Wear time is good as well, 2-3 hours. Lip Stylos are a click pen, no sharpening.

I look forward to seeing the rest of these in person and will have to restrain myself from buying all of them. No. 2 Honey Beige also looks very good to me.

Sunday, July 28, 2013

NARS Radiant Cream Compact Foundation was one of those fashion week backstage previews we caught glimpses of and was used in many of the Fall 2013 shows. It finally launches on August 1st.

NARS calls Radiant Cream a foundation that "combines the supple feel of a cream foundation with the weightless feel of a liquid".

Deauville

The foundation does have a wonderful feel to it on skin. It's light, not heavy or greasy on skin yet is creamy and lightly hydrating. It sets quickly, but is blendable/buildable and is not overly dewy but not at all matte. It's in the middle.

The coverage here , to me, was on the light side. I prefer medium to full coverage so while I loved the formula the coverage wasn't enough for me, even though NARS calls it medium to full. Now to show everyone's skin is different contrast that to the Mom, who after trying it said that it was really, really nice , smoothed her skin and thought it had good coverage. So there you go. I do agree that it makes skin look good. A little brightened, a little more even.

Radiant Cream Compact is easy to work with and unusually for a cream foundation can be used wet or dry. In trying it both wet and dry I didn't notice too much difference in coverage , maybe a little less when used wet.

Deauville, Siberia

Ingredients vary slightly from shade to shade NARS tells me but I have the ingredients for Deauville here, which should be indicative of most of the colors.

NARS Radiant Cream Compact Foundation comes in 20 shades . Siberia is the lightest and is quite light. A bit too light for me in Summer but for those who are very pale this is for you. Deauville is 4th in the shade list and is a bit deeper but not dark. It is still considered "light" and works on my semi pale self.

Available on Aug. 1st for $ 38 at Sephoraand NARS online. Sept. 1st at NARS counters.

Thursday, July 25, 2013

As you probably have heard Marc Jacobs has a makeup line coming out . It hits Sephora August 9th and has had the beauty world buzzing for months. Sephora did a small pre- sale last week and everything sold out fast.

Today I got a first look at some of the hotly anticipated products and I'm bringing you the scoop.

First off, Marc got the packaging oh so right. It's done beautifully and has a very New York vibe along with nice touches like the silver tip clasp on the eye compact. We all know that the product is most important, but let's face it, most of us also have a soft spot for good packaging.

The eye trio in the line is Style Eye-Con No.3 and shown in Rebel . While I am not too sure about that magenta, at least on me , the eggplant and buff shades are lovely and work well together. The pigment is rich, there wasn't much flaking during application and it blends pretty easily . It wore well over the course of half the day. I haven't given it an all day test yet , but was impressed with that wear time on my oily eyelids with no primer.

Each eye compact comes in a an MJ logo snap pouch and has a small brush inside as as well as an MJ protective cover. There are six Eye Con No. 3 palettes available along with 7 shade palettes as well.

The nail polish is called Enamored and is in shade Glinda. Again the packaging. I like the oval , flat bottle. It holds in your hand easily. The top cap comes off with a smaller cap underneath. I think even without a swatch you can see this is one of those party on your hands shades and super sparkly. There are 24 shades of Enamored in all. According to the company the wet look finish is that of 30 coats of lacquer.

Next up is the concealer/perfecting pen Remedy. MJ says it has an exclusive anti -aging complex and helps to correct, brighten and erase. The tip is patented with palladium to cool skin. It has a click pen at the bottom .

The Remedy shade I have is called Stand Corrected and is their "universal" corrector. It's very light , almost too light for my under eye but overall worked well on my pale skin. It's very creamy, smooth and is not too thin of a formula , a dislike of mine in concealer, and has good pigment. It concealed well under my eyes and along the nose and was nicely moisturizing. Remedy comes 7 shades in addition to Stand Corrected along with brightening Bright Idea .

So my take on Marc Jacobs Beauty ? So far, very good. Some are fun, others more useful but all seem to be high quality. I have the gel foundation also and will try to get that in separate post.

The line was created with Sephoraand they are the exclusive retailer along with select Marc Jacobs stores.

I've taken to sometimes calling this The Year of Powder, owing to a good number of amazing powder releases so far in 2013 both face and foundation ones. This , to me, is thrilling as I am a very much a powder fan. I know some people aren't or they have fear of powder. The ones that have come out this year should help to fix that .

Chanel's Les Beiges Healthy Glow Sheer Colour is the newest powder to come along and it's one I've been waiting for since reading about it early this winter.

#10,#20,#30

Chanel knows powder . Their main compact powder compact Poudre Uuniverselle is one of the best and quickly makes you look better . Rose Mervielle is a staple of mine but was an LE release .

Les Beiges Healthy Glow continues in their tradition of finely milled powder and takes the look better idea even further. It's meant to impart what they call a belle mine , or bonne mine as I've often heard it, look. In other words, you but better aka a healthy glow. It also has a huge rarity in powder- SPF.

The SPF is 15 and that makes Les Beiges great for not only a topper of extra sun protection but an easy way to brush on more SPF as a touch up.

The powders have a large range of shades and can be used on a bare face for polish, over makeup, as contour or as bronzer, which Les Beiges excells at being mainly matte, no shimmer and with subtle color so you won't overdo it.

No matter which way you use them, these truly do make you look better. I swished the fair #10 all over, used # 20 to contour, and #30 for a deeper bronze on cheeks and I was darn happy with the results. I look smoothed , polished with some color but not overdone. The powder is light and almost undetectable. Also with shea butter as an ingredient you don't have to worry about dryness, it floats on skin.

A half moon brush comes along in the compact , which also has a cap over the powder cake to keep them separate. This is one of those times when the brush is well worth using. It contours on cheeks and brushes on lightly over the face. I still also used a puff and will use a larger brush, but the one that comes with is quality.

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

The first thing that you notice about new Ralph Lauren Polo Red is the striking bottle. The same style as all Polo but in bright red. I absolutely love that lacquer red bottle. I immediately thought of the high shine candy apple red The Dad had on his one pickup truck for years and then read that the red bottle was inspired by Ralph Lauren's car collection. And Lauren's collection is an amazing one from what I've read. As a car buff, I'd love to see it.

The scent is a tart , woodsy one that if you love unisex scents, might just work for the ladies as well. The berry notes make it a little less all masculine but it's in no way sweet. Lavender is prominent throughout as is cedar and sage. The drydown becomes a little more deeper and just a touch smoky with the amber note.

Polo Red has is not a quiet scent, but it is not heavy either. It has presence but doesn't bowl you over. Sillage is also very good. It also doesn't remind me of some of the other Polo scents. This is less green than many of those with the exception of Double Black which is non green and very nice.

This new release didn't quite make it for Father's Day, but would definitely make a nice gift for any other special days ahead . I am sure by the holidays we'll see some nice gift sets as well.

Chanel's Le Volume De Chanel mascara is one of the very , very good ones. I loved it in black and now with Fall's Superstition Collection there is a khaki bronze version that I equally love.

Brown mascara sometimes gets a bad rap, many don't like it ,but I always have. While I use black mostly, brown or brown /black as it's often labeled looks good on me with my coloring. Chanel's Khaki Bronze is not plain brown but a deep bronze-y, muted brown . It's not light on lashes and it doesn't look khaki or even overly brown unless you look very closely. Lashes look dark , maybe not black but it doesn't scream colored mascara even if colored mascaras are having a moment.

As with the original Le Volume, Khaki Bronze delivers great volume and full defined lashes with all day wear.

Chanel Le Volume De Chanel Khaki Bronze Mascara is $ 30 and available now with a matching eyeliner.